"AI is definitely raising the ceiling and making things possible that were not possible before... We need to increase the ceiling of what is possible going forward and reward people putting the effort into increasing those judgment layers."

-Pusker Regmi

Episode Summary

Pusker Regmi is the vice president and wastewater sector leader at Stantec, as well as an award-winning engineer honored with the Water Environment Federation's Camp Applied Research Award. After moving from Nepal to the United States to pursue his passion for water engineering, Pusker now spearheads technical innovation and leads teams in delivering large-scale wastewater treatment and resource recovery solutions. His career is defined by a commitment to pushing the boundaries of process intensification and technical excellence.

In this episode of The Zweig Letter Podcast, host Randy Wilburn and co-host Luke Carothers sit down with Pusker to discuss his remarkable journey from studying electrical engineering in Nepal to becoming a sector leader at Stantec. They explore the inherent complexity and societal value of wastewater engineering, the transformative integration of AI and advanced technologies, and how these advancements are reshaping leadership, innovation, and upskilling within AEC firms. The conversation provides practical perspectives for leaders on fostering innovation and navigating the rise of "intelligent assets" in water infrastructure.

Whether you are navigating a digital transformation or seeking to inspire technical teams, this episode offers firsthand insights from the forefront of the AEC industry's AI evolution. Listeners will gain action-oriented strategies for intentional upskilling and a better understanding of evolving client expectations in the era of intelligent infrastructure.

Key Takeaways

• Complexity and Multidisciplinarity: Wastewater engineering integrates physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering, offering an intellectually rewarding and impactful career path for young professionals.
• AI as a Force Multiplier: Rather than replacing engineering judgment, AI sharpens capabilities and automates repetitive tasks, returning critical bandwidth to technical teams for higher-value work.
• Intentional Upskilling: Acquiring AI proficiency is increasingly self-driven and essential for modern engineers. Firms must proactively recognize and reward this initiative to stay competitive.
• Collaborative Innovation: Stantec focuses on co-creating application layers alongside utilities and operators to ensure long-term adoption and practical, real-world value.
• The Era of Intelligent Assets: Embedding knowledge into infrastructure creates proactive, dynamic systems that retain institutional expertise, mitigating the impact of departing experienced operators.
• Rising Client Expectations: As AI matures, clients expect greater efficiency and more sophisticated deliverables. Firms must continue to elevate their quality and judgment while leveraging these new tools.

Listen to the full conversation on this episode of The Zweig Letter Podcast.

Links Referenced in This Episode

• Pusker Regmi on LinkedIn
• Stantec Website
• Zweig Group & ElevateAEC Conference
• The Zweig Letter Website
• Flipping Book Version of the Newsletter
• Water Research Foundation Project 5378
• Learn about the Zweig Letter and subscribe: https://thezweigletter.com/
• Connect with Randy Wilburn on LinkedIn
• Connect with Luke Carothers on LinkedIn

Get your FREE Subscription to the Zweig Letter Newsletter.

Call to Action & Next Steps

To stay updated on industry evolution and leadership, subscribe to The Zweig Letter Podcast and explore our library of episodes highlighting AI transformation and technical innovation. To connect with Pusker Regmi, visit his LinkedIn profile or the Stantec website. Stay tuned for continued insights into how today’s leaders are driving the future of design and construction—one conversation at a time.

Thank you for listening! Be sure to subscribe for regular updates and more enlightening content from The Zweig Letter Podcast.

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Welcome to the Zweig Letter Podcast. Putting

architectural engineering, planning and

environmental consulting advice and guidance in your

ear. Zweig Group's team of experts have spent more than three

decades elevating the industry by helping

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Podcasts elevating the design industry one

episode at a time

Water is something most people take for granted until something

goes wrong. But behind every clean river,

every treated gallon, every healthy watershed, there are

engineers who've dedicated their careers to making sure

the system holds. My guest today made a journey

most people couldn't imagine from Nepal to

becoming a vice president and wastewater

sector leader at stantec, one of the largest

engineering and design firms in the world. Puskar

Regni came to the United States to pursue water engineering,

and he's never looked back. As sector leader for wastewater,

Pusker oversees technical innovation, fosters client

relationships, and leads teams delivering wastewater

treatment and resource recovery solutions at scale.

In 2025, he was awarded the Camp Applied Research

Award from the Water Environment foundation, one of

the most prestigious recognitions in the field. It's kind of like

the Oscars for his contributions to process

intensification in wastewater treatment. And right

now, Pusker and Stantec are in the middle of something

genuinely exciting. A 30 month Water Research

foundation initiative partnered with

WSCSC Water and Prince

William Water, which combines engineering experience

with advanced AI architecture to to translate

treatment data into real time operational

guidance. They're calling it the era of intelligent

Assets. I'm also joined today by my co host and partner in

crime, Luke Carruthers, Senior Content Manager and editor

with zweigroup Pusker. Welcome to the show. Really

glad to have you here. Thank you so much, man. It is certainly

a pleasure. I really want to, I want to get started and

kind of jump into some of your experience and background, but we always

like to start here on the zweigletter podcast with a

superhero origin story. And so you grew up in Nepal

and came to the United States, as I said earlier, to pursue water

engineering. That's a huge move. It's not even a big move. It's a huge move

and a very specific calling. What drew you to water

and what was that journey like? That's a really

awesome question. And to be honest, like, I didn't start as a

water engineer. My background is electrical engineering.

That's what I did during my undergrad. But in the final year

of my studies I was volunteering for

center for Pollution Studies back home in Nepal and my

role was to go out and give lectures to elementary and

middle school children around, like, sanitation, water,

you know, safe drinking water, things like that. And that

became sort of like a huge calling for me. You know, like I

didn't realize the impact water can have in one's life.

And being, you know, a developing country, Nepal has a lot of

water challenges. And that instantly drew me in

a sense that I saw the impact of water and

the immediate, you know, results that you can see in

communities around you. Right. And that was not available for me

when, you know, through my electrical engineering kind of a training. So I

decided to pursue water engineering and came to United States

to do that. And I stumbled in

wastewater, which is specific, kind of a domain by

itself, and fell in love with research and,

you know, translating that research into full scale systems

and so forth. So that's is sort of my origin story.

And I'm keeping the same spirit alive, you know, day to day

still. Yeah, no, I appreciate you sharing that. And I think

it's important, especially for young practitioners in the

AEC space, engineers and architects for that matter, to understand

that sometimes you can pivot. Right? I mean, you were in school, you were,

as we like to say, the cool kids like to say, a double E. And

then you decided to go into the waste, the water, wastewater

aspect of it. And I think it's important. And what shouldn't be

lost is why you looked at water and

wastewater so passionately, because of your experience

growing up in Nepal and what that represented for you. Because I was

telling Lucas earlier on, on our pre call that, you know, I think

a lot of times in developed countries we sometimes take for

granted a lot of the resources that we have at our disposal.

Like I flip on my, my sink every day and I expect clear

water to come out. But I know because I've been around the world, I've been

to Africa and other places, that's not always the case. Matter of fact, you

may, may not even have a sink to flip on and turn on. And

so I think just understanding why, you know, the

work that you do in the water wastewater region is so

important and why we want to continue to encourage people,

especially in the AEC space, especially engineers, to get

involved with, you know, to this specialty in this area because

it really, it's important for everybody. I don't think there's a, there is

not a person on this planet that doesn't value clean

water. Absolutely. Yeah, that's true. And the other side

to that is, you know, like, until any, you know, nothing breaks

or becomes a news in the developed world, we take like water for

granted. Right. Everything works, wash down, you know, everything

disappears. You have a running water. But when things go, do

go wrong, then it matters. And there's a whole

industry that keeps this, you know, kind of running. And I'm

definitely part of that system. And what we

are faced with right now is aging infrastructure. Right.

In the United States, in a lot of infrastructure was

built in the last 60, 70 years. And they're getting

old. Right. So is our workforce in some

ways. Right. They have been operating these complex systems. And

that's why I think the topic of today, AI is such an important

topic. How we can bring life to old

infrastructure. How do we retain like, knowledge that we have of

the operators of our systems? That is all important

topic. Yeah. You know, and I've. I had a chance to do a little bit

of background research on you, and you've. I've heard you

talk and write about the importance of

the waste, you know, what being a wastewater engineer is all about,

and how sometimes it's an area, it's a profession, it's a field

that sometimes misunderstood. I'd love for you to talk about

the value and importance of the area

that you work in within engineering. Yeah. So one thing that I want

to tell everybody about like wastewater treatment, generally

speaking, is that it's very complex and it draws

from like several engineering and sciences

discipline. Right. We use like physics around,

like settling things. You know, we have like clarifiers.

We use chemistry to, you know, remove some of

the pollutants. We use like biological pathways to

degrade pollutants and contaminants. And we bring all of this

together in a discipline which is extremely

complex, but also provides that intellectual pursuit

or somebody who wants to do something cool with it. Right. Even in my

lifetime in this career, I have seen a lot of breakthroughs that

has happened. We have, you know, invented, discovered, like

biological pathways that we didn't know, like, existed in the past.

And we are doing treatment processes in full scale

using those things. Isn't that like, cool thing, you know. And

so for a young engineer, I think it provides a lot of,

you know, kind of opportunities to display their talents.

And also, in a sense, inherently, the.

The field is complex. It requires like, collaboration between like

several disciplines and, you know, cross pollination of ideas.

And that is what I find really fascinating about wastewater treatment,

you know. Yeah. Lucas, did you. You look like you had something you wanted to

Ask. Yeah, no, I, I was, I love that you mentioned the

complexity of wastewater in general and it, it doesn't get the

recognition that it necess always does. But every

time I've been writing about wastewater on and off for six years now,

and it feels like there's always big advancements

from a technological front that you wouldn't necessarily expect coming from that sector because

it doesn't get the attention that others do. So from your

perspective, like, what have those breakthroughs been and kind of where are we going from

that technology perspective? Yeah. Something that we have been

collectively working in the wastewater space is process

intensification. And process intensification is nothing

than doing more with less in less meaning

that you want to do more treatment in a smaller footprint by

using less resources. And it's truly within the

last 15 years or so we have come up with

several processes, very effective,

sustainable and attractive

economically. These processes have come into the

fold. And one of them, I'll name it, is Anammox.

Anammox is a new biological pathway. These

are like bacteria that we didn't know existed, you know,

25 years ago, but now they are part of our treatment

processes. And the cool thing about Anammox is it does not

need like any aeration. And aeration is like energy,

right? Like you put like air to the system, it does not like need any

aeration. While it can degrade like nitrogen, it can use

ammonia, anoxic conditions, it does not require like

any carbon, which is also a footprint and emissions

kind of a thing. So it has dramatically changed

how we treat nitrogen from wastewater. And

there are several processes that have come about. So that's one of the classic

examples of, you know, new biology, helping new

technologies come forward. That's cool. Well, I mean,

obviously, as you say, since you mentioned it, new technologies coming

forward, obviously the elephant in the room is AI and

I, I would love to talk about just about this

subject as it pertains to the work that you do. I mean, AI is

one of the most talked about forces

reshaping the AEC industry right now.

And I'd be curious to know, Puskar, from your vantage point as

someone leading technological and technical innovations at

stantech, how is AI actually

changing the way engineering projects get done?

Yeah, so AI is, you know, to be honest with

you, AI is kind of a upper layer of what

we do. Right. Like it's not the core of what we do, our

knowledge, our experience, getting things done

in, you know, like full scale systems. That is not going away

with AI anything like AI is making

things more sharper for us. You know, what is important. Right.

It's giving back some bandwidth to us. You

know, in. When it comes to the engineering side of things, we also

tend to do a lot of tasks that are like, repetitive, that are like

heavy on your cognition. Right. But it's not necessarily a

fun work, you know, it's a grind that we all have to do. So

one of the things that AI does for us is it takes that

load off of us and it gives some cognitive,

you know, bandwidth back. And that allows us to focus on

something that is truly worth pursuing. Right. That is

important. And it's doing on the engineering kind of design side

of things as well as it's doing on the operation side of things

when it comes to wastewater treatment, you know, plans and processes.

Okay. All right. Lucas, you want to add anything to that? No, I was going

to say, I think that's just, that's the central anxiety when it comes to

AI. I think in the cultural moment is that AI is

going to somehow replace us. And I think it speaks to the

future, that it's going to make things sharper. Right.

So for a, maybe someone, a young engineer that's

entering the industry, or maybe a mid level engineer that's trying to reposition

themselves, how can they make themselves

used to these AI tools and kind of get better practices, understanding these

ideas? Yeah. So one of the things that AI

inherently will not do is it's not going to bring that

judgment and taste elements to the table. Right.

So you using AI to train yourself, Right.

To kind of access things that you didn't have time to access

is going to fundamentally make you a more,

you know, well rounded, like kind of engineer. Right. It allows you to get that

bandwidth back. And I think that's going to change the conversation.

And one thing that we have to do as a collective though, to

make sure that this happens is that we need to reward that

kind of effort. Right. Like where people are, you know, like enhancing

their judgment, they are bringing, they're increasing the ceiling of

what is possible. And that needs to be recognized by

the professional societies, our firms, you know,

and the schools. Right. All of them need to reward that sort of a

thinking. Because AI is definitely raising the

ceiling and it's making things possible that was not possible before.

So if we are, you know, throwing the same problem and expecting

the same results, that is too limiting for AI. So we need to

increase the ceiling of what is possible going forward. Right. And we need to

reward people putting the effort in increasing those judgment Layers,

you know, and those difficult things that we might not have done before.

I'm curious to know, Puskar. Is. Is stantech

doing anything in the realm of training or upskilling

for its employees that's been. That you've seen, that's been

really helpful. Maybe it's even helped you. Yeah. So

stantech, you know, has the latest AI tools like

Copilot and things like that. There has been some training around that

for folks. It's readily available for everybody to use,

and that has helped. Right. But what I'm trying to say, though, is we

need to take that, like, one step further in a sense that

in today's day, I don't think we are limited by training,

to be honest with you. Training is everywhere. It's almost like a

commodity. You can watch, like, YouTube videos. You can use even

AI to train you. You can write an app, MIT

level, like tutor, you know, and you can vibe, code it and

help you kind of educate on AI and everything.

So it's not matter of, like, access anymore when it comes to AI. And in

these tools, you know, it's like a system where we are

trying to reward. Right. That behavior of, like, training

yourself, bringing value, increasing your judgment.

I think that's where we need to focus more, and I think that is

slowly happening. But I think we need to be more intentional about that

kind of a training and reward system. I like that. Yeah.

And I hope that young engineers that are listening to this

episode, that has to ring true with you. I mean, one of

the things that the translation of everything that Pusker just

said was that you have to be intentional and

you have to kind of grab the bull by the horn, so to speak,

in terms of gaining an understanding about those things that may either

be foreign to you or you may not be sure exactly as

it pertains to AI, where that's going to lead. Like you said,

Pusker, there are a million different videos I can watch. There are

Coursera programs, there are programs on LinkedIn learning.

Just about every platform has training and education. And

my encouragement to anybody watching this is to take some time, even

if it's on your own time, to gain some understanding.

And that will then go a long way and informing you

when opportunities present themselves in the workplace. So that if you are

working with someone like Pusker or somebody else that's working at a high

level and thinking about things collectively, you will be

ready to answer the call when they say, okay, I need a few more

engineers to join me on a particular project. And

who's with me? And. And you might be able to raise your hand and say,

yep, sign me up Pusker, and let me get involved with what you're

doing. So I want to talk about the Water Research

foundation initiative with WSSC

Water and Prince William Water. Can you kind of walk us

through that project, what that project actually is

maybe trying to accomplish and why this felt like

the right moment to take it on? Yeah, absolutely. This is,

you know, so the main thing here is AI

models have advanced quite rapidly in the last five years. Right.

And everybody knows this. There are a lot of news around this and

there is a huge interest in reaping the benefits of

these AI models that we have at our disposal now. Right.

And there is a race, so to speak, of building a application

layer to make it useful in reality. But

the gap that I see and we saw, you know, when

we came up with this project, is that how that application

layer gets built. We are not building an application

layer that we give to the utilities.

Right. We are trying to build it with them working

alongside them. Right. And that's the difference. You know, it's

not like in a hypothetical problem that we are trying to solve, hey, we came

up with this cool gadget, now you use it. We are trying to co

create that tool by the people who will be using this in the future.

Right. So that's the difference with the Water Research

foundation project that we have. And the cool thing here is

it brings collectively like stantec,

our AI partner eos and these utilities

and we are together building this tool and we are like

validating using like real problems by the real

operators. So this is not going to be something that you give it to them.

This is going to be like co build, you know, by, by them, you

know, from day one. So that's the key to this research. And I'm

assuming that it's not lost on you that other

utilities and other organizations may come calling as

you put this into practice and say, hey, sign us up or

hey, can you help us solve this same problem or something similar.

And I always say that, you know, Venture favors the bold

and opportunity. And so you guys are kind of at the cutting edge

of this with stantec and the work that you're doing, especially in the water

wastewater space. Have you heard from other organizations that

are saying, hey, we're keeping an eye on what you guys are doing and

we would be interested in maybe lining up as opportunities

present themselves to pursue this at an even larger scale?

Yeah, absolutely. And even within the water Research foundation project

that we have. We have something called like, you know,

observing utilities panel. So there are like another

six, seven, you know, utilities who will be watching us

build these tools, you know, and we'll be providing like regular

updates. So the idea here is to refine

that thinking. Right. Like refine that layer by

having more voices kind of vetted, you know, and question

it. We are really intentional about that. The two

utilities we have are very like, you know, very

much wonderful, like use case. But we want like more

voices and more like more questioning on what we

are doing. So that's part of the project as well. Yeah. And

then the other thing too, I want to add to this. And you're introducing the

concept of, and I'm using air quotes now, intelligent assets

through this work. And that's like a phrase that's going to maybe mean different

things to different people in this audience. How do you define it?

Intelligent assets. And what does it look like when it's actually working

in a treatment plant? Yeah. So the assets are all,

you know, we know the assets are there. Right. Like if you go to a

treatment plan, there are like several thousand of these

pieces of equipment, reactors and so forth,

but they are static and they don't have a knowledge component to it. Right.

But the operator is constantly building a knowledge base to

operate, to maintain and to make sure that it functions

properly. So intelligent asset is combining that

knowledge to go with existing asset and to make it

like durable long term. So it is not just a

static thing, it's a dynamic thing that has its own knowledge that is

retained and is like talking to the operators all the time.

Right. So now it becomes something that is long lasting as

opposed to when the experience operator goes out of the door, you

lose all the institutional knowledge. Yeah, absolutely. Lucas,

you got anything? Yeah, no, I was going to say the idea of

the intelligent asset, it kind of fascinates me because our

response to infrastructure is almost, has always, almost

inherently been reactive. But this gives us the ability to be

proactive. So this is kind of a high level. Take

it maybe. But are we moving towards a future

where infrastructure thinks? Yeah, So I think the

thinking comes from again, that retention of knowledge, right? Yeah.

As long as we have this layer that is like watching

everything, you know, like remembering like all the events

along its life and presenting the information when it's relevant.

As long as that is happening, I think it's a very useful thing to

have long term. Right. So not necessarily like, you know, kind of a

terminator way of like intelligence and scary way but in

a way that is really useful for us going forward, right?

Yeah. Well, man, I mean, Puskar, you've been involved in this

industry for a while now. I'd be curious to

know your general thoughts. Right. Not necessarily talking about water, but just

the AEC space in general. You can probably

remember when, when things were probably more done

by hand, when calculations were done by hand or a

calculator or an hp. And now everything is on a computer.

Everything is just kind of done differently.

What are your thoughts about how this industry has

evolved and what are you most excited about for

the profession and also for those young engineers that

are matriculating out of college now and coming into a whole new

engineering environment than what you experienced when you left

Nepal and came here? Yeah. So one thing that has increased

is the appetite for trying new things in our industry. Our

industry is heavily regulated, as you know. Right. We are like

the first priority is always compliance and human health. That

is like, that's non negotiable for us. So we tend to be

conservative in the past, but there is like a lot of like

openness now in the industry to not try new things. And

it's also, I think the lot of new people who have at

the digital first kind of a generation who grew up with

like, you know, Internet and you know, iPads and

so forth, they are like entering the workforce now. So

they are like looking forward to bringing the same level

of convenience to what we do. Right. Because

the Internet, you know, the old ways of doing things are like vanishing

rapidly. So that is a perfect kind of a scenario to try

out like even bigger things. And AI is definitely one

of them in my opinion. Right. Where it can take

the knowledge base that we have generated, all the access that

Internet provided, we can take it to the next level. So I think

generously speaking, this is the right moment to try like even bigger things

in our industry. Yeah. And I like that

you mentioned that knowledge as that knowledge, as AI

becomes more embedded in our engineering services,

what does that change about what clients expect from firms like

stantech when it comes to a project? Yeah. So with

AI, I think the fundamental thing that doesn't go away is like

you still want a high work, high quality work

product. Right. And the right judgment, those are like still non

negotiable. But one of the things that I think we expect generally now

is, you know, more polished

deliverables and more efficiency, so to speak.

Right. So we are bringing like a lot of number crunching, lot

of like maybe like even literature review to the table. And we are doing

that efficiently and cleanly, you know, so that expectation

has increased, I think, overall in our industry, which is a good

thing. Again, like now we'll be focusing on not grammar or like

polish, but the actual judgment becomes the topic. Right. Which is a great

thing in my opinion. Yeah. Now this is. That makes a lot of sense.

We really appreciate the time that you've taken out of your busy

schedule to talk with us today about this. If somebody

listening to this conversation wants to get in connection with

you, what's the best way for them to do that? So I'm really active in

LinkedIn. I write a lot and I share my thoughts,

personal thoughts, you know, professional thoughts. So that is the best way

to connect. If you want to keep in touch with what we are doing with

the Water Resource foundation project, the project code is

5378. And then there is going to be like quarterly

updates in the Water Resource foundation website around

that project as well. That's the best way to connect. And,

you know, I don't know if you are planning on putting my info

at the end. Yeah, we'll put all of this in the show notes. Our

legion of listeners knows that they can go to zweigroup.com

and click on the podcast link and they can get all the show notes or

they can just read the show notes directly on their podcast player of

choice. So we'll make sure that you're fully covered and our hope is that

you're going to, you're probably going to make, you know, several hundred new friends because

of this podcast episode or thank you so much. That's

excellent. So, Puskar, this has been a great conversation. What

you're building at Stantec and what this WRF

initiative represents is exactly the kind of work

this industry needs to be paying attention to. The way you talk about

AI is something that serves engineering judgment rather than replacing it.

That's a perspective that I honestly hope a lot of people in this

audience carry with them. So for anybody that's listening

today, if this has sparked something, whether you're thinking about how

your firm is approaching AI, how you're building client

relationships around innovation, or just what it means to

lead technical teams through a period of real change, I hope

you'll share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. You

can find the Zweig letter and everything Zweig

Group has to offer the AEC industry at

Zweiggroup.com subscribe wherever you listen to

podcasts and we'll see you back here soon with

another new episode. Thanks again, Pusker. We really appreciate you

man, and we look forward to having you on again in the future. Thank you

so much, Randy. Thank you so much, Luke. All right, take care. Bye bye.

All right, take care. Bye bye. Thanks for tuning in to

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